So just as predicted, it’s May 16 and Beckett is currently one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Wait … What?

Even I didn’t see that one coming. My prediction was that he’d win 14 games and have a sub-3.70 ERA.

Instead, he's channelled his inner-Pedro Martinez and currently has a 1.75 ERA, placing him second in the American League behind Oakland’s Trevor Cahill, to go along with a 3-1 record (which should be 5-1 if not for anemic offensive showings in two other starts).

“We had a lot of confidence in him,” manager Terry Francona said after Sunday’s game where Beckett held the Yankees scoreless for six innings. “We always have.”

That’s easy to say now after Beckett has thrown 18 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings, Terry, but I’m not sure that statement works.

The team may have been optimistic, but it was obvious they were cautiously confident after pushing him to fourth spot in the rotation to start the season behind Jon Lester (2.96 ERA), Clay Buchholz (3.94), and the utterly uneffective John Lackey (8.01).

Seems more like they were expecting something closer to 3.70 than 1.70.

So, what’s behind the rapid turnaround besides having a healthy back?

His curveball, once considered one of the deadliest offerings in baseball, is finally effective again.

Last season, the website Fangraphs rated the pitch as a negative offering, giving it a score of 2.1 runs below average. This year, however, the pitch is rated at 3.6 runs above average, the highest it’s been since the 2007 season when it scored an 11.5.

For those less statistically inclined, maybe this will put the effectiveness in perspective: He’s thrown his curveball 385 times this season, and registered a strike on 56.4 percent of those offerings.

The Saint Louis Cardinals Adam Wainwright, who is considered to have the deadliest curve in baseball, was only slightly better last season, throwing his breaking pitch for a strike 64.4 percent of the time.

This regained effectiveness is also showing in Beckett’s other numbers. Last year, he surrendered an average of 1.41 home runs for every nine innings pitched. This season, that figure is at a career-low 0.53.

The question now is whether or not Beckett can sustain this success.

The numbers where luck can be easily identified – strand rates and batting average on balls in play (BABIP) – strongly suggest that a recession is right around the corner.

So far, Beckett has stranded a ridiculous 86.5 percent the batters who have reached against him and held those same hitters to a .220 BABIP.

For the sake of perspective, the league-average BABIP is .300, and Beckett’s career strand rate is 71.8 percent.

In other words: Beckett is going to come back to earth.

The good news is that earth is now nowhere near last year’s 5.86 ERA season, and also better than the 3.70 I previously envisioned.